When they’d woken up the morning after the battle, Remy had been dead, lying between Cryden’s feverish body and the blood-soaked corpse of his brother. Merigold had had nothing to say. Ill’nath never said anything. And Lisan hadn’t said anything. They’d just proceeded to bury the twins as best they could.
There were no honorariums nor tears. Neither would serve a purpose, not now.
Marius had implored Merigold to take care of his brother. Several hours later, his brother had been dead.
Perhaps, somewhere, beneath his broken and fragmented nerring, some piece of Remy had still existed. Perhaps the presence of his brother had bound him to the world, even given him some sense of hope that he would be restored. Perhaps, had Marius survived, there would have been a chance to heal him. Certainly, someone in Agricorinor would have known, and would have researched this very problem. And yet, they would never know.
The cart was lighter now, with just a single, near-dead man inside. Merigold hoped, at least, that they would be able to save this one person. She had not broken yet, but losing one more of her protectors—a man who had kept her safe and treated her with respect, a man she even considered a friend—would mean she very well might. Just when she’d thought she had reached the very depths that guilt could take her to, she stretched the emotion even more.
In the cold light of midafternoon, they continued their journey north through the perpetual, pearlescent snow.
***
Sestria’s Grasp was a strange place. Not a good strange, either, as in trying a new foreign dish and being delightfully surprised. Sestria’s Grasp was a bad strange, as in finding that such a new dish was full of scorpions, razor blades, and horse cocks.
As Lisan would say, the Grasp was where Sestria was fucking Rafón. And so it would appear on a map if one squinted and had a bit of a dirty imagination. And, even in person, that appeared to be the case. Almost at once, they rode from a pine forest into a field of lonely stumps. The trees, though, had not been used to build any meaningful structures. Rather, the logs formed a low barrier as far as the eye could see. Not a wall, but a marker of the border between this strip of land and Rafón. Even as Meri watched from her horse, she could see a group of two dozen bundled-up Sestrians rolling one of the established logs out just a few feet. Then, they ambled over to the next great log, dug in their heels, and heaved that hunk of wood so that it would be in alignment with the first.
“They are self-styled expansionists,” explained Lisan. “Rafón lost this piece of their country in a wager gone awry, and the Sestrians gladly moved right in, outright ejecting the former residents. The exact borders of this misbegotten deal weren’t clear, so the Sestrian squatters created their tree wall. Over the last dozen years or so, Prince Albun has declared that the Rafónese lied about their scope of the wager, and has ordered a slow expansion of the borders.”
“And the Rafónese just… allow it?” Merigold asked, watching these men work.
Lisan smirked. “It’s a useless game of tug of war. The monarch declared that this incursion needed to be halted at all costs. So, each night, a group of Rafónese laborers roll those logs back into place.” Merigold had noticed that the logs were being rolled along a well-worn muddy path. “Neither ruler will yield, of course, so the common folk get to enjoy the back-breaking labor for a barely livable wage.” One of the men slipped in the mud, causing a chain reaction as a second slipped and the log began to roll backwards. Shouting ensued and the group restored order, but not before the log had squashed the legs of the first fallen man.
“A cruel place,” Merigold murmured.
“You have no idea.” Lisan kept her eyes straight as a column of maroon-cloaked Sestrian soldiers marched by, giving them stares colder than winter. Even Ill’Nath, from his place driving the cart, kept his head down. Perhaps the big man had learned something in Polanice, or in the flight and battle that had followed. Or, maybe with his shoulder injury, he just realized that there were only so many heads he could smash before becoming overwhelmed. Regardless, the line of soldiers passed without incident.
“Do you think they know about the Menogans?” Merigold asked, feeling her mouth dry at the sight of so many hard-eyed soldiers. She had been stumbling from war to war, and was growing sick of the sight of weapons.
“I expect so, with incursions so close to the border. We need to find out what is going on here, and we need to find out what is happening in Agricorinor. I don’t want to wander into another ambush. I’d rather we kept our hands clean on the rest of this gods-forsaken journey.” Lisan had spat the last words, her tranquility finally beginning to crack. Her unpleasant face was rendered even less palatable with her frown.
“I am thankful for it, Lisan, but I need to ask. Why are you still with us? This has to be far worse than you could have expected. Yetra knows… I couldn’t imagine a worse journey if I tried,” Merigold said. She cupped her gloved hands around her nose and breathed out, savoring the moment of moist heat on her face. She could barely remember what warmth felt like after these weeks of trekking through the snow.
Lisan considered Merigold from the corner of her eye. “I’ve already told you the origin of my name. Arrow.”
“Yes, but this is more than keeping true to your name. We have been through pandemonium.”
Lisan laughed quietly. “My life has been pandemonium, stumbling from one fire into another. I have been hunted by mercenaries in Algania in a case of mistaken identity. I was caught in the great fires of the Eastern Sweeps, where the sky was black with smoke, so much so that day appeared to be night. I was enslaved in a galley and brought beyond the Great Barrier to Menoga, where I fought and stowed away to get free. I have stolen and I have killed and I have done some terrible things. But, through it all, I can say that I have never lied. I have always kept my word. It is worth braving all of this… horseshit… to be able to maintain some sense of self, some semblance of honor. This world wants to strip you away. So, you must choose what to give up, and what to hold onto.”
What to hold onto. Merigold wondered what she still had left to cling to, to protect, at this point. Not much, it seemed.
“Lisan… thank you.”
Merigold’s simple thanks brought a soft smile to Lisan’s lips, though she said nothing in return. They rode in silence for some time, reaching more populous areas for the first time since their flight from Polanice. Though they were clearly foreigners, and though war was at their doorstep, no one really gave them more than a glance. Farmers continued clearing snow from fields, harvesting root vegetables, and working on their various winter tasks, like mending fences and feeding livestock. Laborers cut down trees and hauled lumber while traders choked the roads with wagons from Yaraban, the capital city of Sestria, to feed this appendage. They were not the only light-skinned travelers from Saiwen on the road, either so maybe they were not so unusual a sight. The lack of reaction seemed promising, suggesting that they would not have a repeat of Polanice.
Merigold could see towers beginning to show in the distance, through the mist of the gentle snow. Each glowed slightly, lighting the way for weary travelers. Behind these, there was the shape of a walled town.
“What is that place ahead? Should we skirt it?” Merigold called.
“That is the prize of the wager between Prince Album and Region Lord Merinto. The city of Terranice. And, yes, we need to stop. We need supplies for the last sprint, and, like I said, we need to figure out what we are walking into, and what has been happening in Agricorinor. Though I plan to stay my course…” Lisan smirked, “I do not intend to do it blindly.”
“How will we learn about it? No one will want to talk to us foreigners.”
Lisan’s smirk cracked. “Luckily, or more precisely unluckily, I know someone in Terranice. And, the Day Mother-fucking bastard is a pasnes alna.”
***
It hadn’t been the border tug-of-war that had made Sestria’s Grasp bad strange, in Meri’s estimation. Rather, it was the display
at the gates of Terranice that turned peasant-abusing-bad into stomach-turning-sickening.
The stone watchtowers that Merigold had seen through the fog were not, in fact, meant to light the way for travelers. Rather, they were devices for torture. Above each great flame was a floorless cage holding a naked prisoner. Without a floor, each prisoner was forced to wedge their arms and legs through the bars to hold themselves up. Each tiny prison was low enough that the person’s genitals likely blistered when fuel was added, but far enough above that they would not cook like a hunk of pork. And above each cage was a torturer wearing a black-as-night hood.
As Merigold watched, one torturer dumped a thick substance onto one of the men, a Menogan.
“Honey,” murmured Lisan, her voice tinged with disgust.
“Honey?” Merigold asked, somewhat boggled. To make the prisoner lose his grip?
“For that.” The torturer, who was completely encased in a protective suit, held a strange, papery ball with a long set of forceps. He reached down and bashed the ball against the cage, and it began to crack like a stubborn duck egg. The Menogan began screaming then, howling and shrieking. He was in clear and utter agony. But Merigold could not see anything that might be causing it.
Lisan answered the question in Merigold’s eyes. “Rilling ants. That was a nest. The little flying bastards are attracted to the honey and, well, the bite is incredibly painful. I’ve been bitten once; it feels like the skin is melting right off the bone. And…” she rolled up her sleeve, showing a deep brown, puckered scar the size of a yet, “…it scars. The Black Hats get their jollies from trying to shock people into the fire, either from the pain or through inducing suicide. Sometimes they hold contests to see who can get their victims to tumble into the fire first.”
The Menogan, though his shrieks pierced the air, did not relent. He clung to the cage, either through blind determination or in hopes that his comrades would stage some sort of rescue. From other torture towers, more voices joined the Menogan’s in a choir of agony. Merigold was surprised that she felt nothing for these men. No sympathy, no sorrow. It wasn’t that she supported the torture, but rather she just had no pity left to give.
“Tell me of Menoga, Lisan,” Merigold said abruptly, speaking loudly to be heard over the shrieks and a sudden cheer as one of the men fell into the fire a few towers down. They had not much spoken of the country of the man who’d disemboweled Cryden. Caring for Cryden and Remy, and then fleeing for their lives, had not offered the opportunity. And, even on the quieter trail, conversations had stayed fairly surface-level. Presumably, neither wanted a reminder of that night on The Graceful Whale, and it had seemed almost sacrosanct to breach the topic. But now, seeing these men being burnt and tortured, Merigold wanted to know.
Lisan apparently understood. She remained silent until they had passed the towers and entered the city gates, receiving only a disinterested nod from a Sestrian soldier. “Menoga is… Menoga is both a much better place and a much worse place than Ardia. Art and culture flourish, and the ruling class allots resources to such pursuits. Medicine is more advanced than you see here, with some exceptions, and there is far, far less crime. Common people live a higher quality of life. But, it is brutality that prevents crime. There are rarely second offences because the punishments for first offences tend to be violent and public. And, slavery is the backbone of the economy. Menoga has taken the entire continent, bringing the Reanoners, Ellenese, Pen, and a dozen other peoples into their empire. Each of those vassaled countries—the Silver League, they call it—offers a yearly tithe of slaves for use around the continent. Labor is never an issue when you consider the availability of backs to break.”
“You were a slave?” Merigold asked, shivering at the reminder of her own captivity.
“Aye. They took my ship, where I was working as a deckhand for a time. They had some of those magic-wielders who easily subdued us. Weeks I spent in the hold of a galley; tumultuous weeks.” Lisan’s eyes were distant. “We passed through the Great Barrier, called so because it is thought to be impassable. Thousands of miles of oceanic mountains and reefs that no Ardian captain would dare to brave. But we survived. For four hundred and seventy-nine days, I lived the life of a slave, working on the docks and in delivery. I was an oddity—a Jecustan amidst the Menogans. Frankly, some of the attention was nice.” There was a gentle smile on her unattractive face now, but it suddenly hardened into a tight frown. “Some of the attention was not so nice.”
“How did you escape?” Merigold asked, frowning along with her. She could empathize with being a slave.
“I rarely left the docks in Mannamut, the capital of the empire. Mostly I worked as a porter, unloading ships, doing back-and-knee-breaking labor. I feigned being broken like the rest of the conquests and, over time, my overseer became lax. I slit his throat and tossed him into the Red Bay, and then I managed to stow away on a ship heading back across the Great Barrier. At least, I hoped that to be the case; the captain and his mates spoke Ardian. For weeks, I lived in a crate, foraging for supplies and water. I twice had to kill when I was discovered, but the ship was large enough, and the storms were severe enough, that any missing persons were just assumed to have been fed to the sea. They never docked, but laid anchor west of Rafón. I swam for it, one night, and nearly drowned, too. Washed up on shore and so on.” Lisan’s lips tightened like a door to a safe. She was done sharing.
Merigold used the lapse in conversation to take in Terranice. Though they were in Sestria’s Grasp, the city was Rafónese. Well, mostly. Polanice had no architectural embellishments, considering that the city was constantly destroyed and rebuilt from the yearly hurricanes. But Terranice had more of that Rafónese style which Meri had read about. Buildings were constructed of brick of varying shades, the bricks used in alternating patterns of color and shape. The result was that the typically three-story buildings had a striped look, reminding Merigold of a cat that had once lived near the Duckling. It was well-built, organized, and utterly efficient in the use of space. But Sestria was not content to take a city and leave it as is. The Sestrian dome, the cornerstone of Sestria’s architectural identity, was growing out of these Rafónese buildings at random. As a result, the city appeared almost tumorous.
Guards lined the roads, maroon coats appearing like drops of blood around the city in contrast to the colorless clothes favored by the Sestrians and Rafónese who lived there in pseudo harmony. There were light-skinned folk from Saiwen all over—merchants, laborers, artists. No one singled them out or seemed to treat them any differently. All things considered, Terranice seemed like a pretty decent place… aside, of course, from the Menogans being tortured at the gates.
Merigold glanced back at Ill’Nath, who met her gaze directly. After a moment, he gave her a wink and a half-smile, light shining into his mouth through his cheek-hole. Meri raised an eyebrow and glanced away. Even after all their trials, she could not quite get used to the sight of his teeth and gums, highlighted by the metal-ringed hole in his face. The Pintan islander was such a weird man, and this was somewhat out of character for him. Lisan, to her credit, seemed unaffected. She led the party unerringly down one side street and then another, each perfectly perpendicular to the last. The Arrow led them straight, as always, to their destination.
“Is this… is this a bakery? Are you hungry, Lisan?” Merigold asked.
“Aren’t you?” Lisan dismounted and tied up her horse, raising an eyebrow at Merigold. The sweet, yeasty smell of bread and cakes filled the air, and Meri’s stomach growled.
“Of course, the answer is yes. But this seems to be a strange choice, considering how close we are to our destination. Plus, don’t we need to see this pasnes alna friend of yours?”
Lisan glanced through the wall of glass lining the front of the building, squinting to see through the reflection. She stiffened her shoulders and clenched her warrior’s fists.
“We are about to.”
Chapter 33
“Well, what d
o we have here?”
The adonis of a baker, wiping his flour-clouded hands on a clean rag, raised an eyebrow. The man was Sestrian, his olive skin near flawless despite him being Lisan’s age, or maybe in his early forties. His short-cropped brown hair and tidy beard framed a handsome face with a strong jaw, and his short-sleeved shirt, covered by a baker’s apron, betrayed a fit and well-muscled body. Merigold felt her heart flutter just looking at the man, and it was a feeling she’d never expected to experience again.
“Mane, it has been a long time,” Lisan said, her voice cautious as she pushed her way into the shop. Merigold followed, while Ill’Nath tended to their horses, cart, and near-dead passenger.
“Longer for you than it’s been for me, it appears.” So handsome was his curved smile, so calmly casual was his tone, that you could almost forgive the insult. From the way Lisan flinched, though, Merigold knew that she did not forgive it.
“And who is this beautiful, albeit dog’s feet-filthy vagabond that you have with you?” He turned the full force of his smile on Merigold, and she knew he was ribbing her. He spoke Ardian flawlessly, too; Meri realized that, though he was Sestrian, he’d likely been born overseas. Interestingly, signs around his shop were in both Ardian and Sestrian.
“Merigold Hinter is my charge. I would ask you to leave her be, but I might as well try to keep the moons from rising or sailors from fucking whores,” Lisan muttered, averting her eyes from Mane.
Hesitating for a moment, he walked around the counter and embraced Lisan, murmuring something soft into her ears. Merigold could see her shoulders tense, as if she was about to strike or hurl the man through his glass front, but, instead, she relaxed and sank into his embrace.
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